Bonereapers by Jeanne Matthews Page B

Fata’s main songwriter was hung up on her. He wrote a lot of songs about mirages and distorted images and castles in the air.”
    Dinah said, “Fata Morgana seems an incongruous name for a Scandinavian band. I thought mirages only occurred on hot days in the desert.”
    “We see Fatas here in the Arctic, mostly on cold days when looking out over sheets of ice.” He poured a couple of inches of Akevitt into his empty coffee cup. The peppery aromas of caraway and anise were almost stronger than the smell of his cigarette. He said, “I’d like to know if Erika Sheridan is as captivating as Erika Olsen.”
    If she were, thought Dinah, there’d be no intimation that her husband was philandering or that Erika had sneaked off for a secret assignation. But whoever Sheridan suspected her of meeting, it appeared not to have been Brander Aagaard. “Erika told me there were hard feelings when she left the band.”
    “They never made another album. Not that it would’ve been worth a crap without her.” Aagaard sounded like a disappointed fan. “The thing I’ve never understood is what she saw in Sheridan.”
    Dinah was tempted to blurt out her fear that Sheridan was holding Erika prisoner, but she had to be wrong about that. Erika was a smart woman. If her husband abused her, she had the intelligence and the means to get away from him. It was easy to see Erika as fey and vulnerable, but she had demonstrated a bent for deception. It crossed her mind that the senator might be terrified that his wife had run amok and murdered Eftevang. “Did the bartender notice any strange women go in or out of the pub last night?”
    “At last you’ve told me something.”
    “No, I haven’t. What?”
    “That Erika went out last night without her husband. Interesting.”
    “I didn’t say that. There are lots of female tourists in town.”
    “The only two women you could have been referring to are Valerie Ives and Erika Sheridan.” He stubbed out his cigarette, belted half his Akevitt, and squinched his eyes. “I can’t see how Erika Sheridan would know Eftevang or why she would meet with him. But Mahler’s lawyer knew him. Eftevang knew that Mahler would be on Sheridan’s plane. He told me so. Maybe Mahler knew that Eftevang was here waiting for him. Maybe he sent the lawyer to meet with him. What do you think?”
    “I don’t know.” And she didn’t, but if she did, she wouldn’t tell Aagaard. She had the sense that he was more interested in trashing Mahler and Tillcorp than discovering the truth. She should confide what she’d seen and heard to Thor Ramberg and let him suss things out. “Did you tell Inspector Ramberg what Eftevang told you about Tillcorp in Africa?”
    “Yes. I asked Ramberg if he’d found documents or a computer disk in Eftevang’s room. Without evidence to substantiate his allegations, it’s all hearsay.”
    “And had the inspector found evidence?”
    “He was a musling .” Aagaard pinched his lips between his thumb and forefinger.
    “Is that a clam?”
    “He must keep to the rules.”
    “So he wouldn’t tell you.” Dinah gave Ramberg his due for professionalism.
    “No. But if Eftevang tracked down the evidence, so can I. And I will be smarter than Eftevang. It’s clear that Sheridan and Mahler will go to any lengths to squelch the story.”
    “Squelching a story is different from squelching a human being, if that’s what you’re implying. Senators and CEOs don’t go around stabbing people with knives. They kill with words. Do we even know that the murderer used a knife? Did the police find the weapon?”
    “You sound like a detective.”
    “I have detective acquaintances. Did they say what kind of weapon it was? Knife? Screwdriver? Icepick?”
    “The inspector wouldn’t answer that question either. But even if the murderer left it behind, it’s unlikely there’ll be fingerprints. Everyone wears gloves outdoors.” He leaned across the table and leered. “So was it the insidious